Note 15 — PASTORAL POETRY.[1]
Reading edition
It is difficult to conceive where is the "wonderful variety" in Virgil's Eclogues which "the Greek was a stranger to." Many of the more poetical parts of Virgil are copied literally from Theocritus; but are weakened by being made more general, and often lose much of their picturesque and poetical effect from that circumstance.—Bowles.